My Friends and My Family
by Nightfawkes
Summary: Things that matter to Chuck: Friends, family, curtains, and dinner.


Disclaimers: Not mine. I just like their posable action parts.  
A/N: Missing scene from 3x04; Chuck vs. Operation Awesome.

MY FRIENDS AND MY FAMILY

So… uh… there's this thing."

Casey looks up from where he's putting the finishing touches on his report, and sees the unmistakable outline of Chuck, framed in his doorway.

"A thing, is it?" A few final keystrokes, hits send, and closes the laptop. "Well that's some fine, specific detail work, Bartowski. I'm so proud."

Chuck rolls his eyes, but is undeterred by the dry tone. There's no real bite in his voice, so he knows that despite the words, Casey is in a decent mood.

"It is a thing. It is a dinner thing, actually." Chuck's hands are scrunched down into his pockets, shoulder against the doorjamb, afternoon sky framing his face as he watches Casey roll to his feet and walk towards the door. "Morgan and I are having our house-warming dinner tonight."

Casey comes to stand in front of him, arms crossed over his chest, but with no real tension in the lines of his body. It's a sort of habitual irritation, but he's willing to play along. "You guys have been living there for almost a month now. What's with the sudden urge to socialize?"

"Well, it's more a self-congratulatory dinner, I suppose. We've finally managed to furnish the place to approximate some semblance of civilization." Chuck shakes his head in wonder. "It was rough for a while there, I tell you what. I had no idea what Ellie was going through all those years. But we finally did it. We finally found curtains…"

A faraway glaze seems to fall over Chuck's eyes, and Casey huffs out a breath. Snaps his fingers in Chuck's face. "Earth to Bartowski. What are you yapping about?"

Chuck straightens up from his slouch. "I told you. Family dinner tonight."

Casey is totally lost. Okay, so there's gonna be a clan meeting. He's already got the Bartowski-Grimes Show through live feed on his monitors, and if it's just a dinner, he doesn't much anticipate a fight occurring. What's the issue?

Chuck seems to hear the unspoken question, and says, "Maybe you weren't paying attention earlier."

Casey snorts. Him? Not pay attention to something even remotely Chuck-related? Not bloody likely.

"I told robot Shaw that there was something he needed to understand about me. That there is nothing in my life that I care about more than my friends, and my family."

Casey arches a brow. Okay, he might have been out of the room for that bit. Still, this is hardly news to him, so…

"And I care _why_, Bartowski?"

A beatific smile, and Chuck reaches out to place a warm hand on Casey's shoulder. Most days, Casey is the same inscrutable presence he has ever been. But Chuck likes to take it as a sign of how far they've come over the past couple of years that Casey doesn't throw his hand off in violent disgust. He doesn't shrug. He doesn't even snarl. He just allows the moment of gentle contact as his steady eyes regard Chuck from under a quizzical brow.

"My friends," Chuck says again. "And my family." He slides his hand back into his pocket. "Like it or not, that means you too, big guy."

There's a moment, just a brief moment, where Chuck thinks he might have pushed that 'Things Not to Say to Casey' boundary a little too far again. But it passes when Casey grunts, and Chuck is able to recognize #23: Unanticipated approbation.

Chuck smiles again, and turns to head back across the courtyard. "I gotta go make sure Morgan's not burning the place down or anything. This is his big post-Benihana fiasco comeback dinner. Poor guy's a wreck." On the far side he pauses, one leg already inside his window, and looks back to see Casey still watching from his door. "And, uh, hey," Chuck calls out. "Will you call Sarah, and let her know too? Thanks!"

Chuck's lithe figure slips the rest of the way inside the window, and Casey is left leaning against his doorframe, still warm from where Chuck's shoulder rested not moments before. He watches the water in the fountain, and feels the afternoon breeze as it skips across the patio.

So, the kid asked him over first instead of Walker, huh? Well how about that.

A disembodied voice floats back to him from the direction of Chuck's window. "And dinner's at six! Whoa… hey, Morgan, buddy, what are you…"

Family dinner. Guess that means he'd better unearth one of his better bottles of wine, then.

Casey's lips twitch into a smile, and he quietly shuts his door.

THE END


End file.
